Super Speed, Sappho and Siblings
by Duck Life
Summary: Bree keeps glitching. Well, at least, she thinks it's a glitch. It has to be, though, right? Why else would she keep getting all blushy and weird around pretty girls?


Bree huffs into the lab, looking frantic and panicked. "Where's Mr. Davenport?"

Chase glances up from the puzzle he's spent the last hour working on. "Business meeting I think," he tells her. "Why?"

She flops into a chair by the table and self-consciously crosses her arms. "I think I'm glitching," she says. "I wanted him to check it out and see what's wrong."

"Maybe I can help." Bree shoots him a skeptical look. "Hey, I can be helpful! Especially when it comes to our bionics. I don't know if you've noticed, but I—"

"No, I know, you're the smartest man in the world, I got it," she groans. "You tell us literally every day."

"That's because _I'm the smartest man in the world_."

"And the most modest," she says with a sarcastic smirk. "Alright, Einstein, here's the thing— my heartrate keeps speeding up randomly. And my face gets all hot, like feverish? And my stomach twists like I'm nervous and my palms get sweaty."

Chase nods, finger and thumb on his chin like he's deep in thought. "And how long has this been happening?"

Bree shrugs. "A few months? And I thought it would go away but I think it's getting worse."

"Hmm," he says, toying with a stray puzzle piece. "Is it all the time? Or… specifically, when does it happen?"

She shifts awkwardly in her seat. "I guess… usually at school? Like when I'm talking to Chrissy from my math class. Or when Amy and I were working on our history project after school. Or, like, the other day at Tech Town I was helping this girl pick out a phone and it started happening."

"Right," Chase says, mentally picking apart his sister like she's a moderately difficult equation. "Any other times?"

"Oh!" she says, clapping her hands together when she remembers. "Last night I was watching the new Selena Gomez music video and my heart sped up and I felt… you know, feverish and kind of. Sweaty. It was weird."

"Uh-huh," Chase says, tapping something into his tablet. "Okay, Bree, I think I know what's going on."

"Is it a glitch?"

"No," he says, still messing around on his tablet. "You just activated a new app."

"Oh!" she says, clapping her hands again. "Wait, what is it?"

Chase pivots his tablet to show her a blown-up image of a rainbow-colored pride flag. "The 'You're Incredibly Gay' App."

Bree gapes. "What? Gay? Me?" She giggles nervously. "I dunno, I dunno, Chase, for a smart guy you're, like, _way_ off on this one."

Chase shrugs, looking annoyingly superior as usual. "You know yourself, Bree, but I've got bionic gaydar and also you're. Very obvious."

Bree squawks something and pinballs around the room for a moment, working off anxiety. "But I'm not gay," she reiterates. "I mean, I like _boys_."

"Oh, okay," Chase says. "What do you like about boys?"

She scowls. "Um, that they're _boys_ ," she says, feeling dumb as she scrambles to think of something. "They have boy _names_. And I'm a girl. And girls are supposed to like boys. So. Yeah."

"Uh-huh," Chase says. "Some girls."

"What?"

"Some girls like boys," he says, and for once he genuinely sounds like he's sharing information because he's trying to help, not because he's trying to show off. "Some girls like girls, some boys like boys, yada yada."

"But that's _weird_."

"Not really," he says. "I know a few people at school who are gay. Douglas is bi."

Bree scoffs. "Yeah, because I really aspire to be like Uncle Dougie."

Chase puts his hands up in mock-surrender. "Hey, I'm not telling you who or what you're into," he assures her. "But I _have_ been doing a lot of reading about compulsory heterosexuality, like in the last eight seconds, and you should know that you don't _have_ to like boys if you don't want to. And it's okay if you like girls, Bree. It doesn't make you a freak. Or, you know." He grins. " _More_ of a freak."

Bree paces, wrings her hands, tugs at her hair. It's a lot of information to take in, a lot of new perspectives suddenly thrust at her all at once. Without a word, she blurs away, fast as the wind, leaving Chase to his puzzle.

About nine minutes later, Bree zooms back in, hair askew. Chase is almost done with his puzzle. "Where'd you go?"

"Just for a quick jog," she says. "And while I was in Greece, I learned all about this old poet Sappho? And she was, like, a huge lesbian. So I guess that means that… the way I feel isn't because I'm some kind of freak or weirdo."

"That's… what I told you," he says. "Jeez, you didn't need to go all the way to Greece."

"Where else would I have gotten a gyro as good as this?" she points out, holding up her pita wrap before taking a bite. With a mouth full, she tells him, "So I'm gay, I guess."

"Good to know," he says. "And remember, you don't need to tell anyone. Or you can. But it's totally up to you, you don't need to rush into coming out or—"

Bree zips out of the room and then swiftly back in. "Okay, I'm out to Leo, Adam, Tasha, and Davenport now."

Chase blinks. "Uh. How did they take it?"

"Really well," she says, chomping into her gyro. "Tasha wants to go flannel shopping, Leo wants to be my new wingman, and Mr. Davenport just seems happy that he doesn't have to worry about me running around with boys." She chews thoughtfully. "I think Adam thought I said I was Lebanese, though."

"They weren't even weird?" he says, sounding pissed. "I've been dancing around this crap for _months_ and you take a little trip to Greece and have like a five-second conversation with our family and everything's settled?!"

Bree looks at him over the top of her gyro, concerned. "Chase?"

"Screw this," he says, pushing away from the table. "I'm gonna go tell everyone I'm bi." And he vanishes into the elevator.

Alone in the lab, Bree clicks the last puzzle piece in Chase's puzzle into place and smiles.


End file.
